Chapter 3
Tamsin
When I woke, I don’t know how much time had passed. It could have been days. It could have been weeks. I had no idea.
For the first time in forever, though, I felt whole.
That alone almost made me cry.
I lay still for a moment, afraid that if I moved too quickly everything would shatter again and send my bones screaming, or my blood boiling, and force the lycan rage to come clawing back to the surface.
But none of that came. There was heat, yes, a low steady thrum under my skin, but it wasn’t agony anymore.
It was… a pressure of a sort.
A need.
I swallowed and drew a slow breath. The air smelled different than before. It was too clean, all antiseptic and metal.
I was still in the med bay.
And I was alone.
My memory came rushing back in jagged pieces. I remembered teeth. A lycan tearing through me with its teeth. Fire. Elias’s bite. Griff’s voice breaking. My own begging and pleading for the rest of them to mark me.
My heart kicked hard against my ribs.
I pushed myself up on my elbows, half-expecting pain to rip through my abdomen. Instead, my hand slid over smooth, scarred skin and faint tenderness where there should have been torn muscle and stitched wounds.
I pressed harder, testing.
It seemed that I was healed, or at least mostly healed anyway.
There was still a residual soreness, deep and bruised, as though I’d been trampled by a horse and lived to complain about it, but the damage was gone.
The lycan bite that should have ended me was nothing more than a fading shadow beneath my skin.
A quiet, startled laugh slipped out of me.
The laugh turned into a gasp as something inside me surged upward, fast and demanding. My muscles tightened. My spine arched slightly. The heat flared again. It wasn’t painful, but urgent, like a tide slamming against a locked gate.
I needed to shift.
The word wasn’t a thought so much as a command.
I swung my legs off the cot and stood before my brain could catch up, dizziness flashing briefly through my vision. I steadied myself on the edge of the bed, breathing through it.
The pressure intensified.
Every instinct screamed at once—move, hunt, run, now.
Staying here felt impossible. The walls felt too close, the ceiling too low, the air too thin. I needed space. Trees. Dirt under my paws. Blood on my tongue. The wind whipping through my fur.
I slipped out of the med bay barefoot, moving fast and quiet down the corridor.
The door to the outside loomed ahead.
The moment I pushed through it, the world exploded into color and scent.
Pine. Wet earth. Old leaves. Rabbit. Deer. Fox. Water.
My breath caught as the pressure finally broke.
I didn’t fight it.
I let go.
The shift rolled through me like a wave I’d been waiting for all my life.
Bones stretched and reformed, muscles bunching and releasing, skin prickling as fur rippled into place.
It wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t violent either.
It felt… right. Like my body was finally finding its proper shape after years of being slightly off.
Four paws hit the ground.
I shook once, hard, the world snapping into a sudden stark focus.
Everything made sense like this.
I took off at a run before I could second-guess it.
The forest swallowed me whole, branches blurring past as I moved faster than thought. My lungs expanded greedily, pulling in cold air, my heart pounding with a steady, powerful rhythm. Each stride was a release. Each leap carried me farther from walls and memories and pain.
I discovered real freedom then.
I ran until the pressure eased, until the heat settled into something manageable inside of me.
Then I slowed.
Listened.
The forest spoke to me in layers now. Wind in the canopy. The distant rush of water. The skitter of some small critter in the underbrush. I turned my head, nostrils flaring.
I smelled rabbit and it was close.
Hunger coiled in my belly. I lowered myself into the brush, body flattening instinctively, every movement silent as the grave.
There.
Brown fur. A quick twitch of ears. It was unaware that I was close.
I waited.
The moment stretched, taut and perfect.
Then I lunged.
The rabbit bolted, but it was already too late. I was faster, stronger, and driven by primal instinct. I closed the distance in seconds, jaws snapping cleanly around its throat.
It was over quickly.
I carried the warmth of it for a moment, letting the kill settle me, grounding me fully in the now. Then I ate, tearing and swallowing without thought or shame. Blood and meat slicked my tongue, and the ravenous need deep inside me eased.
When I was done, I padded toward the sound of water.
The stream cut through the forest like a silver vein, cold and clear over smooth stones. I stepped into it without hesitation, the chill biting pleasantly at my paws. I rolled, once, then again, letting the water wash blood and sweat and lingering fever from my fur.
The current tugged at me, playful and insistent.
I submerged my head, blinking as bubbles rushed past my muzzle, then lifted it again, shaking droplets everywhere.
For a long moment, I simply stood there breathing.
Just enjoying the sensation of being alive.
I lifted my head and tasted the air.
Home was that way.
I ran again, but slower this time, letting the forest blur past in a way that felt joyful instead of frantic. By the time the Watch base came into view, my body felt loose and settled, the heat banked down to embers instead of flame.
I shifted just beyond the tree line, the change rolling through me in reverse. Human skin replaced fur, hands replaced paws, the world dimming slightly as my senses recalibrated.
I didn’t bother covering myself.
I stepped out of the trees just as I was and almost walked straight into Griff.
He froze.
So did I.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.
Then his gaze dropped.
First, his eyes took in my bare shoulders. My stomach. The long line of my legs streaked with mud and river water, skin still flushed from the shift. I watched his throat work as his eyes traced over me—just once—before he dragged them back up to my face like it physically cost him something.
Heat rushed to my cheeks.
“Oh,” I blurted out, suddenly very aware of the fact that I was standing buck ass naked in front of a man who had watched over me my entire life and had never seen me like this. “I—this is—”
“Christ,” he muttered, husky and rough, and this time he didn’t look away. His gaze lingered just long enough to make my pulse jump.
Heat flared hot and fast across my face, down my spine, spooling somewhere dangerous and low in my belly. I crossed my arms over my chest. It was too late to undo what he’d already seen, and now I was far too aware of the way his attention felt like a physical touch.
“I needed to shift,” I said, a little breathless despite myself. “And then I… didn’t exactly plan ahead.”
“Clearly,” he said.
Something shifted between us in that instant. The easy camaraderie we’d always had was gone, replaced by a tension so thick I could feel it brushing against my skin.
I swallowed hard, achingly aware of the marks on my body, the five matching sets of teeth prints that were now a permanent part of my skin.
And suddenly, I was achingly aware of him.
He was just as muddy as I was. His clothes were streaked with it. His hair was a mess, and there was a cut on his cheekbone that was already healing.
I glanced down.
I’d seen him in all states of disarray over the years, but I’d never seen him quite like this.
He was hard.
I could see it through the fabric of his trousers, an unmistakable ridge that he made no attempt to hide. My stomach tightened as I stared. I couldn’t look away.
Then I made the mistake of looking back up.
His gaze was hot. Unwavering. And focused entirely on me.
It wasn’t the look of a guardian.
It wasn’t the look of a friend.
It was the look of a wolf who had found what he’d been hunting.
His mate.
He took a step toward me, then reached out and his fingers brushed my jaw in a touch so light it was almost a question.
Then they wrapped around the back of my neck, possessive and firm.
His thumb stroked over my pulse point, right over one of the bite marks left on me. It might have been his. I wasn’t sure.
My body tightened in a response that was immediate and undeniable. My nipples hardened, pebbling into tight points that felt suddenly too sensitive against the cool air. A deeper, more insistent heat bloomed between my legs, a slick, welcome throb that made my hips ache to move.
His gaze flicked down, watching me react, watching the flush spread across my chest. A slow smile touched his mouth, and his eyes turned ravenously dark.
“The scent of your arousal is quite strong,” he mused, “for me being a beta bitch.”
My face burned hot, a mortified blush rising so fast it made my head swim. I brought my hands up and instinctively tried to cover myself, trying to hide the evidence of how he affected me.
Then I stopped.
I let them fall.
A strange sense of calm descended over me, a shift inside me as absolute and decisive as the shift from wolf to human. I looked at him, at the hard ridge in his trousers, at the primal hunger in his eyes that he no longer bothered to conceal.
I lifted my chin.
“So it is,” I said, my voice low and steady. A smile touched my own lips, like his, but sharper, like a scythe. “And your cock is quite hard, for a man who’s supposed to be watching over me.”
He stared at me for a long second. Then a rough laugh broke from his chest.
“Fair enough.”
His other hand came up to grip my waist, pulling me flush against him.
The fabric of his pants was rough on my bare skin, and the solid press of his erection against my belly sent a jolt straight through me.
He was so much bigger than me, a wall of heat and muscle, and the scent of him—earth, sweat, and something that was just… distinctly Griff filled my lungs.